Picnic in Bed Painting

Wei Tan (b. Malaysia, 1991) is a painter and sculptor based in Berlin. With a background in music composition, she completed her Master's degree in Music Technology at New York University. In summer 2015, while developing work on image-based experimental sound art, Wei Tan plunged into the world of abstract painting – first collaborating with her teacher Gina Bonati in a small East Village apartment, then experimenting on her own, drawing inspirations from the great Abstract Expressionists and today’s cross-disciplinary artists. Since then she has worked and exhibited in New York, London, Kuala Lumpur and Berlin. Wei Tan’s art began as an urgent act of self-revelation through improvisation. Each painting is a journal entry where thoughts and memories are purged. Like making soup, materials are thrown onto the canvas and mixed together through spontaneous gesture. Wet paint, powdery pastels and viscous oil clash into each other creating haphazard geographies. Often a period of mindless doodling is carried out before the painting emerges with an unexpected coherence. The process of automatic drawing allows thoughts from the subconscious to emerge and form a narrative. In her later work, Wei Tan developed an interest in more tangible and figurative forms. This first manifested as paintings that exist between the real and the abstract, where quasi real-life objects – resembling chairs, boxes, tables and vases – float in a sea of abstract colours and forms. These objects became characters of their own, each emanating a unique emotional signature. In her latest Chairs Series, each chair seems to carry the lingering presence of a human being. The objects in the room evoke various feeling states ranging from excitement and playfulness to melancholy and longing. These rooms are a peek into the emotional landscape of the painter, as well as a mirror in which the viewers can catch a glimpse of themselves.